Radio Niger with a little distortion

Stumbled across this beautiful piece of technology in Niamey last month. The masons were busy working on a friends house, and the distorted wail was amplified by the concrete room that was slowly being constructed around it. The mason informed me that the music was “Pulaar” – the instrument here being amplified molo. There are curious levels of distortion, all layered, from the initial amplification and blown out speakers, to the cellphone recording capturing device, to the AUX in on the cheapo bootleg stereo (of the ever popular X-BASS brand so common in W. Africa).

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exploration of sound and music in west africa, particularly in the sahel region of mauritania, mali, and niger via filmmaking, field recordings, visual art, mp3 archiving, cellphone data collection, and cross cultural experiments